psyche & psalm

it was a perfect night, with the promise of fall still
wrapped in the childish delight of summer.the emptiness of your living room fighting against the garish light of movie-screen
glee.i lay shivering in bare skin, goosebumps
caressing thighs in promise.your form
rose and fell over me like unforgiving waves that threatened to defeat every
bold oath i ever held in my youthful obstinacy.i had been an unstoppable force, devouring egos with long eyelashes and
coy grins.but you? you were life, in totality.a mouth that beckoned and consumed in ways my
mind had yet to devise.

you rose to bless me with a kiss that kept me dumbstruck and
incapable.i, the succubus.the temptress.inept with glorious desire, watching your
hips curve in the technicolor light, muscles contracting into gospel.what were we doing on that pull-out sofa bed
in the middle of the night but destroying boundaries and expectations?and when you entered me, it was as if my body
held no dimensions, carried no gravity.i was transformed into throbbing nerves and desperation.back arching and breath heaving to weave you
a song of adulation.how could i so love
a creature i could never hope to control?

and when i shivered and shuddered within your careful
manipulations, did i know that i would then be a slave to your ever-expanding
greed?this is the moment that i was
lost forever.here is where you will
always be different. for it was more than love with you.it was absolute obsession. the smoothness of
your skin, the subtlety of your smile, the quiet strength of your hands.how i was absolutely in love with every flaw
claimed in your name. this would be the
night i lost my soul to a devil that wears your skin, dimples and all.

do you know that you taught me how ineffectual obsession is?
this was our very first moment of
love.before we would destroy each other
with jealousy and triviality.before you
would go back and fall into her.before
i would allow fear to send me home to him.here is our beginning, which we would chase for a decade, hoping to
grasp and reclaim a disaster that seemed impossible from the very start. forever coloring and dictating our appetites,
molding and mocking all future lovers.

and although you cloak yourself in the defense of regret, i
forgive you.i love you.and i honor our memory enough for the both of
us in my tenacity.this is our covenant
and my oath.take this in memory of me.

the glow from the television noiselessly fed the shadows;
the shapes rose and fell along the walls, adding to the subdued, cave-like feel
of the darkened room.whether it was night
or day, i couldnt tell.the windows were
draped in black, blocking out all of life happening right outside of our cocoon,
the perfect forcefield for lovers intent on obsession.we had spent most of it naked, limbs entwined.
an endless cycle of sleep, eating,
loving. i was beginning to feel as if i
had been born with a body that was made to embrace you.

we rose and fell together, creating a motley of shapes whose
shadows seemed to craft a silent monster, godless in its shape-shifting
movement.

i already loved you.you were my comfort, my calm.but
as you slept beside me, in that small room, in that small bed, with titus
playing on the ps3 over and over again, it hit me.this is where i wanted to be for the rest of
my life.

not in the naive, blind, insistent modus operandi of youth,
whose bravado is marked with delusions of immortality.but real love, which crept in as calm, quiet resolution
that filled my limbs with the sense of belonging to something greater.

i couldnt see your face but i felt your breath, the
heaviness of your arms.this body that
curved into mine as a testament to the divine.

i will make you my home, i swore to myself.this was before my sadness and your
detachment would pull us apart.before i
begged you to love me, before you turned your back on me.

and that still hasnt changed.you are the home i gauge all other people
against, the measure of man, great and terrible and magnificent in my eyes.
take this for it is my covenant, the body of a martyr, made real in
belief.together we shall live forever.

you had the saddest eyes i had ever seen.and the easiest smile.the duality was such a compliment to your
quick mind that it was the most natural thing in the world to form an
infatuation; the idea of you was delicious in my mouth.

you told me that you had this scene in your mind.of us, baring our souls to one another,
symbolized by a slow disrobing.we would
immerse ourselves with the skin of each other, share a bath, and create this
new world, where it was only us and our flaws made perfect within our hands.

i listened and trembled.i still didnt even know what it felt like to kiss you and seize
oblivion.i had yet to develop the sick
addiction i would have to your hands and the way they owned my body. but it was this moment that you became love in
my eyes.it was here that i moved
forward, despite all warnings, and tried to seize your heart.

a simple thought.a
simple story and wish as you played director.you always had these stories right in the back of your throat,
threatening to asphyxiate you if you didnt pull them forth and make them a
reality.

i wish i could hold onto that boy.the one that had the poise of a pharaoh, the
charm of a court jester, and the heart of a poet.the one who fears to be truly seen.

that moment was perfect.the future had not yet corrupted us.i hadn't cried over you.you
hadnt given up on me.we were full of
youthful possibility.

remember this time, beloved.remember what we could have been before life divided us, through your
cruelty and my madness.

this is the time of the promise and it is sacred in
hindsight.take this in memory of me.

swim inside those details
that have been falsely accused of being
trivial.
it was inside the minuscule that you became a god
and
transmuted my reality
into unrequited, overlooked memoirs that have
defined my life.

i want this story to be my thank you letter.
a confession that perhaps will redefine
the words that have become dull
from overuse,
the truest i love you i can submit.

all social media is about some type of manipulation. ultimately, you are looking to manipulate your viewer’s perspective whether through suspension of disbelief (campy horror, sci-fi, etc) or empathy (drama, romance, romantic comedy) or whathaveyou. you want to be able to move a person and in this movement i guess you will find validation for your work. this movie is focusing on such inflammatory subjects that immediately the makers of this documentary had already met their mark…but soon lost it.

the small indie doc tells the tale of two sisters who were victims of sexual molestation. by their father’s best friend. who lived in close proximity. NO,WAIT.ITGETSBETTER. after their parents find out…they confront the molester who promises never to do it again. in response he gets castrated, lobotomized, and left wandering the desert without food or shelter. oh wait. that didn’t happen. cue the reality reel - he promises never to do it again, goes to counseling once, and for the next decade these girls are forced by their parents to see this man in various different contexts, the main one being fucking everyday life.

the documentary is squirm-in-your-seat inappropriate (favorite moment? main character stating…”oh it was normal for me to play with my dad’s penis”) but what is most evident is the utter failure of the parents to protect their daughters. i have many opinions on the fuckery their parents put these girls through but bottom line – the doc’s main storyline is about these two women confronting their attacker many years after in an attempt to gain some sort of closure.

it is heartbreaking, provocative, and in some moments so endearing, but ultimately if you are looking to find hope in humanity – this film is not going to give you that. it’s a testament to how society fails the victim, even long after the victimization has occurred. meeting the molester on camera, the silence and tension in the room was alive with emotion. and once the scene was over and the credits rolled, i’m not sure if i was better off never having heard of it in the first place.

what remained was an intense desire to find out the man’s name. there is about ten seconds devoted to revealing that the molester’s son had been arrested himself for sexual attacks and you see his family struggling to find answers. is sexual misconduct, violence, and violation genetic? is it taught through behaviors only a genius psychotherapist can deconstruct?

the documentary tries unsuccessfully to allude to the dangers of pornography as some sort of ass-backwards explanation to this horrid human being’s conduct. but in a society that is closer and closer to complete censorship, is this the right course to take? pornography is not dangerous as long as there isn’t any exploitation. and as long as mainstream media continues to lace their messages with religious morality, things like speaking out about sexual abuse will continue to be taboo. talking about sex will continue to be taboo. which will always be counterproductive in identifying the demons that prey on people. sex isn’t bad people. what is bad is the exploitation, victimization, and violation of anyone who isn’t a consenting individual. end of story.

i found my trouble at the end of the bottle.it was just looking up at me, laughing.

you are intrinsically bad, little girl.axiomatic said an old writer once.

axiomatically inherently intrinsically bad.

yes.

i threw the bottle with a flick of my wrist and enjoyed the sound the glass breaking on the wet asphalt below my window.grabbed the other that was still full and waiting for me, a little present of possibility.sweet tasting oblivion.the liquid had a way of burning that made me think of antiseptic.

the thoughts overcrowded and jumbled, the codex of the rapture, the epistle of the sorrowful.

gospels they all were.the gospel according to the forgotten.

i emptied the second bottle out of spite in just a few minutes and found myself once again staring back at the distorted reflection at the bottom of the hollow glass.this time, without blinking, i smashed it against the wall and felt around for the edges.

i would cut you out of me in order to no longer to wear this victim’s skin.and as i began to raise the jagged point towards my face, the void came up in a wave and swallowed me away.

i slept the sleep of self-inflicted martyrs, heavy and empty and devoid of all comfort.

what woke me was the sound of the violin playing softly and as i blinked sleep away slowly, i realized that it had all been somehow undone.the years of being tossed to one jackal after another, the living fear and then the hatred and disgust, the breathing husk of a girl that was my existence.

the violin.the song weaved itself to me, a cradle.and on the dresser, as i looked for the source, i found that it was coming from a music box.i stepped gently out of bed, anxious that a heavier footstep might crack this reality and have it all fall around me unexpectedly.

wooden, smelling of cedar, it was smooth, deeply etched with a vine pattern and nothing else.it was empty and unlike most music boxes, it did not hold a dancing figurine.it simply played for the dancer in my mind, the figure i had once dreamt to be.

delicate but strong, like the violin strings that weaved together the melody that held me in a sway of subtle ecstasy.

with a smile, i picked it up and for a moment, felt an immense sense of relief, gratitude, and the purest of love flow through me.and once again, without the blink of an eye, i raised it over my head and smashed that sweet serenading object.with a twang in objection, the song wound down, now only a sickened parody of its former perfection.the world wavered in the lightest of quicksilver and i was back where i belonged.back to where truth is always ugly but it will always let you know where you stand.

the splintered wood was evidence that it had been real.but who the fuck said i needed rescuing?

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i know you. i know you better than you will ever know anything in your entire existence. suspend then, your preconception. remove those opaque, milky, rose-colored glasses. you may not see me, but i am always here. and when you are ready, let's have a conversation, you and i.